I wasn’t very close and there really was no cigar

I was about 13 years old when I first felt it. The overwhelming need to write. It came over me like a compulsion. A possession. I had to write or else I’d explode. I think I had been feeling that way for quite a while, except I didn’t know it at the time. I had the feeling, the urge, the desire. But I didn’t know what to do with it. They manifested as angst. That was all I had a framework and a language for. Teenage angst. The root of this angst was also something I couldn’t yet identify. It was a deep want born of passion and a strong pull of feelings. I wanted something so badly that I felt like I was losing my mind over it. Except I couldn’t have it. I was 13 and had no control over my life. I was not yet an adult, still being treated like a child, and perhaps worst of all… I  was stuck in a regional town located in one of the more isolated parts of the world. I was in a cultural purgatory. Perhaps the best indicator of this was me constantly being jeered for wearing Converse. My dad assured me that Converse were the coolest of all shoes to wear when he brought me my first pair. However, my peers told me they belonged to Ronald McDonald and thus, made me a clown.

Somewhere in my final year of primary school, I discovered a band called The Used. They were older, they made loud noises, and their music spoke to my inner world. Though their lyrics didn’t carry much weight with me, as I didn’t relate to drug use, there was a certain ‘get me the fuck out of here’ vibe that resonated. Before too long, I was in deep. I knew every song, every lyric, every reference, and every time they changed the words when performing live. They were my world, and I wanted nothing more than to run away with them. I wanted to be a photographer so I could be a part of their entourage. I wanted to go on tour and spend every waking moment in their company. In hindsight, I believe this was my first parasocial relationship. The Used rose to fame parallel to My Chemical Romance, who also held a special place in my heart. When My Chemical Romance hit more mainstream markets, their fanservice all but stopped. However, The Used maintained regular interactions with their fans, they released content regularly, and they even went on this strange website that allowed them to live stream and chat with their fans in real-time. (I say strange because, during the mid-2000s, the notion of live streaming was still quite new). This was why I believe I was so enthralled with them–we were in regular contact. Albeit parasocially. But to me, it felt no different. 

One day, in school, I was prompted to write a story. I had just been to see The Used in concert in the city, and I so desperately wanted to meet them. But I didn’t. When I returned home, I logged onto MySpace to see that a girl who had bullied me had met them. She posted photos with them and talked about how she didn’t even like them that much. I was devastated. This was the first time I really remember not getting what I wanted. I know that might sound childish of me. But it was what I truly, dearly, desperately desired. And not only did it not happen to me, it then happened to someone who hurt me. The pain was almost too much to bear. So when faced with writing a story, I wrote what I truly desired. I wrote that I met The Used outside of the venue after a concert. It wasn’t very long, and I don’t remember it much at all. But it was good enough for my teacher to insist I show all the heads of department. It was the first time I really wrote. I had been writing since I was six, sure. But not like this. It’s like when I picked up the pencil I had a quantum leap of ability. My love for music and writing combined and I was forever changed. It was then that I realised I could make anything happen. In my stories, I had control. I could make all of my dreams come true. Even though I was 13, maybe 14, I quickly understood that the terrifying overwhelm of feelings I experienced came from a need to write. Or perhaps it was rather a need to express myself. To find control. To meld myself into the person I wanted to be. Perhaps the most profound part of all is that it was in those moments that I truly did create myself. 

I’ve been tracing the currents of my life back to my childhood in recent months. I think it’s because I’m soon to turn 30 and I’ve been reflecting more than usual. “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, and “Where am I going?” are all questions that have shaped and guided me since that part of my brain started to develop. I guess it was when I was 12. And I suppose I have been back there, looking down the barrel at a new era of life, wondering who I am and why I’m here, and where I’m going. It might surprise you that I have these thoughts and questions because if you were to ask me, I’d be able to tell you exactly who I am and why I’m here, and where I’m going. That’s just my thing. I know. But, and there is a very large ‘but’ here, when my vision and hopes and dreams are so big. When who I am is so tightly wound up in what I truly desire. When my life’s purpose is to do things that aren’t typical, nor easy for me to achieve quickly… it can be disconcerting when the dreams, the vision, the plans don’t come to fruition. They simply exist in the ether and fail to materialise in the third dimension. Without that affirmation, that confirmation, that life-sized mirror, it feels like I’m flying blind. And over time, I start to become confused. I lose touch. I cannot see my own face. And from there, everything starts to slip away. My dreams are not realised, therefore, somehow, I become unrealised. I cease to exist. Yet I remain burdened with the reality of existing. Before too long, life turns into a haze and the millennial rot overcomes me again. I sit in the same place I’ve sat for years. I sit and I rot. 

I suppose you’re wondering why it has been three months since my last chapter. I think I mentioned in February that I’m currently in the middle part. The ugly part. The part where not a lot happens. That remains to be true. I finished I Am ARMY: We don’t need permission, and then got whacked with a printing delay. I accepted the new role at my work, but there were setbacks and I waited two months to begin. On the day I was scheduled to start, I was in bed with influenza, so it got pushed back again. I decided to get my car fixed, but I had to wait for the mechanic to have space, it goes in tomorrow. I think you get it though, I’ve been waiting. What I found interesting was that I was contracted to write articles about the town I live in. This was how I first started getting a name for myself online, I would write about this town. I even wrote for the newspaper. Being asked to write as an authority on the town felt like a full-circle moment. I wondered if it was my goodbye gift to this place or a sign that I was meant to stay. I’ve been writing the articles, but there have been delays with them getting published. What else can I say, except that this is very on-theme. Waiting.

As the days and weeks and months progressed of night shift after night shift, I became miserable. More so than usual. My days blurred into one another and I lost touch with everything. The three-year anniversary of Idol Limerence came and went and I had planned to write a chapter here about it. Even this chapter was meant to be about it. But it’s still not the right time, I don’t want to torture myself more than I have to. I became terrified of my plans to move to Korea. I didn’t want to leave this place, but I didn’t want to stay. 

The start of April soon rolled around and I was on a plane to Tasmania. As part of my move to Korea, I wanted to go and say hello (and goodbye) to my family. If my plans progress as I hope, I might be gone for quite some time. So the trip was me committing to myself, to Korea, to the plan. It wasn’t good timing. I was tired and stressed and nothing felt right. But I went. On the plane, it was like something changed inside of me. The floodgates of feeling opened and I was overwhelmed by everything, in the most beautiful way. In my phone, I wrote:

As the plane took off it all started to hit me. Everything. I get everything now. I recalled memories I’d never revisited. I saw the delicate interconnectedness of everything in my life. How the life I’m living now is the life I lived at 6 and 12 and 18 and so on… it’s all the same. Every moment has built who I am now. And I somehow maintain all of my past selves in every waking moment and beyond. I cried. And I cried. I can see so clearly from up here. The veil has lifted and I can see that I’m, as always, exactly where I’m meant to be. I cannot even explain it. My entire life I’ve experienced foresight. Never of what is useful to me in the present moment. Never anything I can control. I just know things. I know what’s coming and then I’m powerless to make it come or stop or change it. I don’t know when. I don’t know where. I don’t know why or how. I just know. It was as if today was a divine gift of seeing all the threads of how everything is leading to the big payoff. But also how I am more alive and aligned and here than ever before. How ‘right now’ it is. I wish I could explain it. I just understood everything with a clarity I’ve never experienced before. I was relieved and liberated and overwhelmed all at once. Because it’s happening. All of it. What I’ve asked for and more. I can see it all. 

I watched as we flew over the end of mainland Australia and descended into Launceston. The clouds were so big, I’d never seen any quite like them. The sun was setting and cast a rainbow around the shadow of the plane on the cloud. The lower we got, the closer we became to the cloud, the bigger the rainbow. We got closer and closer until the rainbow engulfed the plane. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. All of my nerve endings were on fire and not in the way I had experienced with my illness. I was alive. I felt very much alive. Two days later I was driving south to Hobart. I came out of Launceston and realised that this was the first time I had ever been in another state, driving in a car alone. In my entire life, I had never travelled alone like this. I rounded the corner and saw an expanse of mountains. I cried. Life is beautiful. 

The next day, I woke up feeling wrong. Everything felt wrong. The day after that, I felt worse. After I flew home, my condition worsened. I had influenza. I got sick, really sick. Life, once again, was on hold. I sat in bed and rotted. I battled myself every day just to hold everything together. I felt like I was being pushed back again. A week later I was at The 1975 and I was still so sick I could barely hear. It felt like there was a barrier between me and feeling. Everyone was tall and, despite the amphitheatre style of the venue, I couldn’t see the stage. I thought it was funny, I flew to South Korea to see BTS and couldn’t get tickets. But I still saw them on large screens. Even then, it felt like there was a barrier between me and feeling. I could see, but I wasn’t there. This time, I scoured the internet every day for three months for tickets to see The 1975 and got them… only to get to the venue and be too short to see the stage. I was there, but I couldn’t see. I couldn’t help but draw parallels between these events and the overarching patterns in my life. Always close, but no cigar. 

I started my new position while I was still recovering from influenza. I needed to be trained urgently to fill in for other staff who were taking leave. I worked full-time for two weeks. There was no space to do anything else. The momentum that I had so desperately attempted to build within my company was gone. But there was a silver lining. I was no longer working night shift. Before too long, I had spent an entire month sleeping before midnight. And very quickly, I started to feel more myself. 

I really wanted to address my deep shame about how I looked. In my mind, it was my largest emotional hurdle. There wasn’t one specific incident that triggered it, but I did know how I planned to make a change. It all comes back to one thing. Content. In fact, as I sit here and write this chapter, I can see my ‘opportunities for growth’ aka ‘all the reasons why I’m fucked’ list on my bedroom wall. And on it, right down the bottom, it says ‘making content’. Making content is the most important thing I can do for my career. And most of all, it’s the most important thing I can do for myself. Because without it, without filming myself and showing who I am to the world, I lose my mirror. I lose the feedback loop that generates more energy and more responses from the deepest parts of me. Even if I hate it, even if I make a fool of myself, I have to make content. I have to build that trust within myself again. I have to use it as a healing, self-love practice, where I radically accept myself and everything I have to say so much so that I release it unto the world. I’m backing myself. I have to back myself, and I have to do it publicly. I have to reclaim my body in order to reclaim my power. 

When I was sitting at my desk at work on a Friday night, I was overcome with the need to make content. I didn’t want to wait until I got home because I knew the feeling would pass. So I went to the bathroom and I recorded a vlog in the mirror. The next day I edited and posted it. I was on a high. I watched Suga’s Road to D-Day and was reminded of the power of storytelling once more. I was reminded of what I really wanted to be doing, which was documenting BTS in real-time by their side. Later that night, the biggest wave of ‘I need to be in Seoul’ washed over me and I was filled with energy. I wished there was something I could do with all that energy. But I couldn’t do much, because it was Seoul-specific. I scoured the internet, wishing there was an opportunity that I could find that would take me there for all the right reasons. The only way to handle the intensity of the energy surge was to write. So that’s what I wrote about on my 150th day of writing in a row. 

The next day, I woke up and made content again. For the rest of the week, I made content about myself and my books. I used vlogging as a stage and scripted myself to do work I had struggled to do all year. I finished the second edition of I Am ARMY: It’s time to begin, which I had originally planned to re-release at the same time as I Am ARMY: We don’t need permission. I did a podcast. I answered questions on TikTok. I let myself be seen. Finally. Finally. I had found momentum in all the right places. I started listening to Dr. Joe Dispenza and began consciously shifting my mindset. I treated my brain like a computer that needs to run different programs to get the right results. I worked on visualising what I wanted to do, meditating on it, walking while seeing it. I was doing the inner work like never before. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. 

I cut all my hair off. I didn’t particularly mean to, but it happened. It’s short, like it used to be, it’s still curly, and now it’s covered in highlights. It felt good. I felt like myself again. I knew that The Used were coming to Brisbane, but the show was sold out and I didn’t know if it was the right time to go. A few days out from the show, I felt that I really needed to be there. I camped out on the ticketing page and refreshed it every two minutes in the hopes I would get lucky. The night before their show, I refreshed the page and there they were. Tickets. Before I knew it, my ex and I were in the city at the venue listening to the warm-up band play. I was wearing Converse and had safety pin earrings in my ears, but I still looked nothing like the rest of the crowd. The crowd looked like how I dressed as a teen. Skinny jeans, band shirts, and all the emo-slash-scene-kid works. I thought it was funny, I spent so long trying to look just like that. And here I was, looking so different, yet feeling so at home. It was 20 minutes before The Used were set to come on, and I felt like I didn’t want to be a bystander. I walked downstairs and pushed against the crowd as people left to smoke during the break. I continued walking and the path opened up for me with ease. I kept turning around to look at my ex, confused–why were we able to get so close to the stage? I feared perhaps I was pushing into an area that was a blind spot. Suddenly, I was stopped by a large metal barricade. I looked up, and the stage was right in front of me. The lights went down and The Used came on. Over the speakers played the introduction to Take It Away–“Life’s greatest questions have always been: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? You are about to see and hear one of the most significant messages given to us from God.” And with that, I cried.

I was so overcome with the full circle moment I couldn’t do anything but cry and turn to my ex to shout ‘Oh my god!’ over and over. Bert, the lead singer, turned and faced me within the first line of the song. I was standing there looking at him and he was looking at me, with his back to the rest of the venue. He continued to do this throughout the set. I was face to face with my childhood idol. The man who just got it. And he was singing words that saved my life, with lyrics that I never fully understood until that very moment. He was saving my life all over again. And it was beautiful. I was close, and I got the cigar. I was in the venue, I could see the stage, I could hear everything and most of all… I could feel. 18 years worth of feeling and healing. That’s when I knew for sure that I was still the exact same person I was when I was 12. Everything that shaped me then has turned me into who I am today. Even though I felt lost and like I wasn’t where I wanted to be, at the feet of Bert McCracken, I was reborn. Reborn exactly as I’ve always been. 

The next day I donned my Used shirt, tartan pants, converse, and safety pins with pride. I felt so electrified that I truly knew anything was possible. I had so much energy that I went to the gym and ran for the first time in a year. It was the best I had felt in my entire life. Even prior to sickness. I’d never felt anything like it. Nothing was going to stop me. That was until a few days later when the fever took me once more. The influenza was back, or perhaps it never left, but either way, I was sicker than ever. I was back in bed rotting. Three steps forward, three steps back, or whatever. But I couldn’t let that stop me. 

I did everything I could to claw my way back mentally while allowing the sickness to overrun my body. I visualised my new programming, I saw myself working and gaining momentum. I was healing. I hadn’t lost progress, I had just paused. Everything was right where I left it. I came back. I came back to myself and my dreams for the third time that month. 

I took solace in a new visualisation I came up with to challenge myself. I wanted to picture something I desired, but something that made me want to pause and say “Okay, how is that actually going to work out?”. That way I could practise trusting, and not questioning. I want the book. The book with BTS. I am gripped with the overwhelming need to write, just like I have been for most of my life. The overwhelming need to find, create and perpetuate myself on the page and to understand myself through the interpretation of the reader. Though it’s so much more than that. When I was younger, I didn’t have much control over my dreams. I wanted to tour with The Used, but I was too young and I had no skillset to help me get there. No reason to be on tour at all, I was nobody. I wrote because it was my only way to experience my dream. To be somebody. But now, I’m older. BTS are my age. I have the exact skillset I need to get me where I want to go. And I’m writing so I can bring my dream into reality. I’m writing here so that I can write with BTS somewhere else. I’m writing so that I know I’m here and I’m alive. Because without it, everything falls apart. Without my dream, I have nothing to write for. And without writing, my dream ceases to exist. I cease to exist. It’s all so beautifully interconnected, just like my life as a 12-year-old and my life now. It’s interconnected and painfully interdependent. It all happens at once, or it doesn’t happen at all. Or in more dramatic terms, it’s do or die. 

So there I was, walking laps around my house as I visualised the offer: I was asked to rush to Seoul to write a book with BTS, they asked for me. There’s not a lot of time and I have to leave right away. I walked and I walked until I had utterly convinced myself that it was happening. I looked down at my phone, almost expecting a call. Instead, I saw a post on Instagram, ARMY were celebrating. My world slowed as my eyes refused to tell my brain what they saw. BTS have written a book with someone and it’s coming out in July. The first print run is one million copies. And that person most definitely isn’t me. It isn’t me. It’s happening. By all means, it has already happened. In the years I took off of writing and publishing to heal, it happened. I missed it. I missed it and it was never really mine in the first place. Though that was my dream, I have come to accept that I wasn’t very close, and there really was no cigar.